End Times Witnessing: Fasting God wants

The watchman heard, “Is this the fasting I want? No, you are not fasting for Me. You are fasting for yourself.” “ Is this not the fast that I have chosen : To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke?”
Fasting has to do with God’s purposes. God wants yoke be broken, the oppressed set free. Who oppresses? Who sets yoke on our neck? Jesus says, “The thief came to steal, kill and destroy.” (John 10:10). Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil (1 John 3:8). Often Christians look at the flesh (physical realm) and miss the whole point (the reality is in the spiritual realm). Fasting is indeed an end times weapon for spiritual warfare.
Read the Bible verses and note the many examples of how fasting accompanied warfare and victory. Fasting is for seeking divine guidance and direction, protection, breaking of spiritual bondage (which results in physical deliverance too), deliverance from danger, prayer and supplication, mourning, repentance, humbling and disciplining our souls, showing our faith in God, obedience to God, even consecration and sacred assembly before God!
Fasting for the Lord can be for “ joy and gladness and cheerful feasts For the house of Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.” (Zech.8:19)

1. Ezra 8:21 Fasting and Prayer for Protection ]fast there at the river Then I proclaimed a of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him the right way for us and our little ones and all our possessions. 8:23 So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer.
   
2. Nehemiah 1:4 So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
   
3. Psalm 35:13 But as for me, when they were sick, My clothing was sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting; And my prayer would return to my own heart.
   
4. Daniel 9:3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
   
5. Matthew 17:21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”
   
6. Luke 2:37 and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.
   
7. Acts 10:30 So Cornelius said, “Four days ago I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing,
   
8. Acts 13:3
   Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.
   
9. Acts 14:23 So when they had appointed elders in every church, and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
   
10. 1 Corinthians 7:5 Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
    
11. 2 Chronicles 20:3 And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
    
12. Ezra 8:23 So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer.
    
13. Ezra 9:5 At the evening sacrifice I arose from my fasting; and having torn my garment and my robe, I fell on my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God.
    
14. Nehemiah 9:1 [ The People Confess Their Sins ] Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, in sackcloth, and with dust on their heads.
    
15. Esther 4:3 And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
    
16. Esther 4:16 “Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!”
    
17. Esther 9:31 to confirm these days of Purim at their appointed time, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had prescribed for them, and as they had decreed for themselves and their descendants concerning matters of their fasting and lamenting.
    
18. Psalm 69:10 When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting,That became my reproach.
    
19. Isaiah 58:1 [ Fasting that Pleases God ] “Cry aloud, spare not;Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins.
    
20. Isaiah 58:3 ‘ Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’ “ In fact, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, And exploit all your laborers.
    
21. Isaiah 58:4 Indeed you fast for strife and debate, And to strike with the fist of wickedness. You will not fast as you do this day, To make your voice heard on high.
    
22. Isaiah 58:5 Is it a fast that I have chosen, A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, And to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast, And an acceptable day to the LORD?
    
23. Isaiah 58:6 “ Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke?
    
24. Daniel 6:18
    [ Daniel Saved from the Lions ] Now the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; and no musicians were brought before him. Also his sleep went from him.
    
25. Daniel 9:3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
    
26. Joel 1:14 Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land Into the house of the LORD your God, And cry out to the LORD.
    
27. Joel 2:12 [ A Call to Repentance ] “ Now, therefore,” says the LORD, “ Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”
    
28. Joel 2:15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, Consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly;
    
29. Jonah 3:4-6 Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”⁵ So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. ⁶ Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
30. Zechariah 7:1 [ Obedience Better than Fasting ] Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to pass that the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev, 7:3 and to ask the priests who were in the house of the LORD of hosts, and the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years? 7:5 “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me? 8:19 “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘ The fast of the fourth month,The fast of the fifth, The fast of the seventh, And the fast of the tenth, Shall be joy and gladness and cheerful feasts For the house of Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.’